Fire Safer Cigs: VT self-extinguishing cigarettes

Vermont becomes the second state to require cigarettes sold within its borders to be less likely to cause fires, under recently passed legislation.

Cigarette law saves lives, makes sense

November 29, 2007
Ed Shamy, Free Press Staff Writer

There’s a lot of fun to be had making light of dumb laws, whether they’re imposed by Congress, the Legislature or the selectboard.

The flip side is that when a law proves itself prudent, we ought, out of fairness, to acknowledge that, too.

A Vermont law that took effect May 1, 2006, required that all cigarettes sold within the state be wrapped in part by a fire-retardant paper. They’re called self-extinguishing or fire-safe cigarettes or even the more pompous low-ignition propensity smokes. If the smoker doesn’t take a puff to keep the tobacco burning, one of two bands on the paper stifles the embers.

Made sense because 25 people died in fires caused by cigarettes in Vermont from 1997 through 2005. Nothing — not heaters, bad extension cords or unattended skillets — caused more fire deaths than cigarettes. Of every four Vermonters who died in a fire during that stretch, one perished because of a dropped cigarette, often smoldering in upholstery before igniting lots more.

The Vermont numbers and percentages mirrored the national experience — annually 700 to 900 people died in cigarette-related fires, about 25 percent of the total fire mortality rate.

Cigarettes kill, that’s a given. But they’re not supposed to exact their toll that quickly.

When Vermont lawmakers approved the requirement on self-extinguishing cigarettes in 2005, only New York had such a law in place, and the jury was still out on its effectiveness.

Smokers worried that cigarettes would put themselves out during a smoke break. Manufacturers didn’t want to incur the costs.

New York’s numbers proved encouraging. In 2003, before the fire-safe cigarettes were required there, 29 people died in smoking-related structure fires. By 2004, with the law in place, that dropped to six.

Vermont’s numbers are, of course, much smaller than New York’s, and we don’t yet have a complete year of data. But it looks promising. Two people died in Vermont in smoking-related fires in 2006, the year the requirement took effect — both perished before the ban. This year, we may not have any.

State after state enacted similar requirements, and now nearly half of the states and all of Canada require that only self-extinguishing cigarettes can be sold within their borders.

The handwriting on the wall, R.J. Reynolds Co., a leading cigarette manufacturer, announced Oct. 25 it would manufacture only fire-safe cigarettes by the end of 2009.

For those scoring at home, that’s these brands: Camel, Kool, Pall Mall, Winston, Salem, Doral, Lucky Strike, Viceroy and Monarch, among others.

Philip Morris, also a large manufacturer, hasn’t followed suit — yet — but has a policy of not opposing state or local laws that require the self-extinguishing cigarette requirement.

The adage remains true — it’s still not possible to legislate common sense. Those who insist on not using it will continue to make lives miserable for themselves and others.

But a good law can make foolish mistakes more difficult.

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State to sell self-extinguishing cigarettes

April 28, 2006

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont next week becomes the second state to require cigarettes sold within its borders to be less likely to cause fires, under recently passed legislation.

Following New York, the Legislature last year passed a law that requires all stores to sell cigarettes that meet fire safety standards.

“It’s one important way we can save lives in Vermont,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Research Interest Group, which lobbied for the change. “We would expect that these cigarettes would reduce the incidence of tobacco-related fires in the state.”

Cigarettes are the leading cause of fire-related deaths in Vermont in the last 10 years, said Robert Howe, assistant state fire Marshall.

Data from the New York Office of Fire Prevention and Control showed 29 deaths from cigarette-related fires in 2004 and 6 in 2005, although last year’s data was incomplete, said spokesman Laurence Sombke. New York’s law took effect midway through 2004.

Vermont stores will be allowed to sell their inventory of regular cigarettes before switching to the new kind.

“I don’t really think it’s going to end up to be a huge issue on the retail end,” said Jim Harrison, president of the Vermont Grocers’ Association.

Terry Shannon, who owns Meadow Mart in Montpelier, said he has no problem selling the new cigarettes. But he said some customers have complained about what he’s already started to sell. “They have to keep relighting them,” he said.

When the law went into effect in New York in the summer of 2004, retailers feared that smokers wouldn’t like the taste or characteristics of the new cigarettes and would be driven to buy them online or in other states.

“There were some customers who didn’t like the new properties of the fire-safe cigarettes, but as a whole the transition in New York was much, much smoother than we ever anticipated,” said James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores.

“Yes, there was some grumbling, but the big picture is there was a high level of consumer acceptance.”

“We are encouraged by the results and hope the trend continues,” he said.

Cigarette-maker R.J. Reynolds has opposed the legislation but said it would follow the guidelines.

Spokesman David Howard said the cigarettes are not “fire-safe” and labeling them as that “instills a false sense of security.”

He said careless handling of cigarettes causes fires and educating the public rather than passing legislation would be more effective.

Since Vermont passed its law, California has followed with its own law that will go into effect in January. Canada became the first country to sell the cigarettes in October of 2005 and a similar bill has been sent to the governor in Illinois.

About a dozen states have considered some type of legislation, Haven said.

Burns hopes Vermont will cause a domino effect and the cigarettes will become the standard nationwide.

“We can assume that Vermont played a critical role,” he said.

April 8, 2005
By Shay Totten | Vermont Guardian

Smokers may find themselves under fire in Montpelier, but that’s nothing compared to the heat that lawmakers are turning up on tobacco companies.

Legislation picking up steam under the Golden Dome would make the Green Mountain State the second state in the country to force cigarette makers to sell only “fire safe” cigarettes.

Only neighboring New York has such a law on the books, which went into effect last June.

The bill has a broad coalition of supporters — from public health advocates to public safety officials, as well as grocers and insurance companies. That support, however, doesn’t deter cigarette makers, who are pushing to quash the Vermont legislation.

“No other state has a adopted a similar bill, even though it has been more than four years since New York first adopted the legislation, and less than a year since they implemented regulations — why is that?” asked Jim Goold, a Washington-based lawyer who represents tobacco giant RJ Reynolds.

There is no data to suggest that the New York law has had a positive or negative effect on the cause of fires, he added. “When this idea was extensively researched at the federal level, the conclusions that were reported to Congress by the Consumer Products Safety Commission were that it was unclear whether a cigarette regulation would effectively address the number of cigarette-related fires.”

Fire safe cigarettes can be crafted in a number of ways, according to advocates and cigarette makers. All it takes are small design changes, including the use of less dense tobacco, less porous paper, a smaller diameter, a filter tip, the addition of “speed bumps” on the filter paper, and the elimination of citrates that are added to the paper to maintain burning.

Vermont should monitor results in New York to see if this is “a prudent posture for the state to assume,” said Goold.

New York officials say it’s too early to tell if fire safe cigarettes have decreased fires there. “We really didn’t think that we would be able to say that this has reduced fires or not for more than a year after the law took effect,” said Russ Sciandra of the Tobacco-Free Coalition of New York. “We do know that there was no change in New York state’s tax collections — the average collection is actually slightly higher.”

The state has certified 750 varieties of cigarettes under the new law, Sciandra said. He said he is unaware of any tobacco company that has pulled out, but it is possible that some foreign manufacturers no longer sell their products in New York.

Sciandra said the cost of cigarettes in New York did not increase due to the new law. However, Goold said there are added costs to making cigarettes fire safe, but he couldn’t provide specific figures.

Sciandra said other states, including California and Massachusetts, are considering similar legislation, but nothing has made it as far along in the legislative process as Vermont’s proposal.

A safe cigarette?
Each year, cigarette fires cause close to 1,000 deaths and 3,000 injuries in the United States, according to the National Fire Protection Association. In fires attributed to dropped cigarettes, there is one death to every four injuries.

According to the Burn Foundation, which tracks burn center admissions of people injured in fires, survivors of cigarette fires remain in the hospital an average of 33 days — which is longer than a burn center average of 20.5 days. Per-day treatment costs were one third higher — averaging more than $100,000 per admission.

Vermont mirrors those national statistics, according to Robert Howe, the chief safety officer of the Vermont Division of Fire Safety.

“It’s the leading cause of fire deaths, but not necessarily the cause of the fires themselves,” said Howe.

In the past 10 years, Howe said, 25 percent of Vermont’s 116 fire-related deaths were caused by careless smokers.

“The reason they are apt to be serious is because the smoldering cigarettes may not break out for hours and at that time people are often asleep,” said Howe.

He said safe-cigarette legislation was introduced in Vermont years ago, even before New York, but the bill languished for lack of interest. This year, the bill appears to be moving through the Legislature quickly, as are other anti-smoking measures such as a statewide ban on smoking in all workplaces, including private clubs, bars, and restaurants.

The Vermont bill was introduced by a suite of Chittenden County Democrats: Virginia Lyons, Jim Leddy, Jim Condos, and Ed Flanagan.

The bill would ban all cigarettes “for sale or manufactured in this state unless they comply with fire safety standards based on rules adopted by the commissioner of public safety.” The bill sets basic standards and penalties — up to $10,000 per violation — for all manufacturers who fail to meet these standards. If passed, the law would take effect in 2006.

Cigarette makers say fire deaths due to careless smoking are decreasing, and that safer cigarettes aren’t the answer.

“Nationally, the careless smoking fire problem is one that has been improving rapidly,” Goold notes. “Fire deaths and fire injuries are all down by 60 percent or more over the last couple of decades, which is a major improvement.” Those improvements have occurred because furniture makers have improved the fire safety of mattresses, chairs, couches, and other items often ignited by careless smokers, he said.

But Brattleboro Fire Chief Dave Emery thinks Vermont has waited long enough.

“I am certainly a strong supporter of that bill,” said Emery, whose department battled the Dec. 4 blaze started by a cigarette that engulfed the top two floors of the historic Wilder Building in downtown Brattleboro. The fire displaced 10 people and four businesses, and two firefighters were caught in a flash during the blaze, Emery said. The smoker, a 22-year-old woman who fell asleep with a burning cigarette, suffered third-degree burns to her lungs and upper body, and had to be airlifted to Boston for treatment.

“It’s long overdue, because not only do we see it in structure fires and room fires, but we see them on the sides of the road during the dry season,” said Emery. “A great deal of fires along the road are started with cigarettes.”

Other public health advocates agree with Emery.

“Vermonters should not be second-class citizens with fire safety,” said Theresa Cassiack of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, which has taken a lead advocacy role on the bill. Advocates have been hoping for national legislation, she added, but it has not been moving in recent years.

“The tobacco industry has been fighting this nationally and at the state level, and I think it’s because they are concerned about product liability,” said Cassiack. “They don’t want people to think that they could have made a safer cigarette years ago and prevented people from dying.”

Similar legislation is pending in California, Oregon, New Hampshire, and Maryland.

“If Vermont … becomes the second state to pass such a law, this would mean that New York’s standard would be the de facto national standard,” said Sciandra. “If Vermont passes it, it is even more important than when New York passed it because Vermont is saying to the rest of the country, ‘Let’s adopt this standard.We’re tired of waiting for the federal government.”’
http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/0105/SafeSmokes.shtml